Category Archives: Geology

I have been reading lately. I have been reading a lot, lately…. I could not sleep last night. An old article by Wendell Berry gave me thoughts to consider and apply to my own small business.

Solving for Pattern. Written by Wendell Berry. Chapter 9 in The Gift of the Land: Further Essays Cultural & Agricultural. North Point Press, 1981. Originally published in the Rodale Press periodical The New Farm.

Wendell Berry is a farmer and an author. His writing is thought provoking and disturbing, well written, easy to read and difficult to walk away from…

Wendell Berry has been on my reading list for a long time. It is time for us to get to know him, now! Solving for Pattern is a short article that poses questions and discusses the long term meaning of economy. Not of economics. Economy. Economy of size. Small businesses. Small farms.

Questions… I went back to university several years ago. I thought I just wanted to take a few courses, make my evenings a little more interesting. I discovered that I was learning to read in a way that I had not even considered possible. I am still learning about reading but now, I am also reading to learn to ask questions. Wendell Berry has been asking these questions for a long time. His questions about patterns, economy, conservation, and healthy living are worth considering.

Further Readings (I have already started reading The Unsettling of America):

Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture. 1977. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1977. This book is available in most libraries. Read a review of this book here.

James George Frazer, The Golden Bough. First published in 1890. My edition was published in 1994 by Oxford University Press. Available online, free, here.

I have been reading lately. I have been reading a lot, lately…. I finished reading this article last night, on the bus on my way home from work. Yes, I use public transit. I gave up my personal gas pedal almost 3 years ago.

Donald McGillivray, Professor of Environmental Law, University of Sussex, has a current publication list here.

I found this article doing a random search on water rights. I was looking more towards Western Canada, where I live, but all information is good and this article is full of definitions that will probably help me in further reading. And, bonus marks, Professor McGillivray’s writing is concise and clear.

Probably the most important things that I realized while reading this article was that the environment is not protected by stewardship rights or laws. That the only time we really protect the environment is when there is an overlap of needs between someone holding water (or land) rights and the environment. In other words, when it benefits someone to protect something, the environment is looked after. Not something that I had not realized before but, seeing it in a published article is different.

A couple of ‘Further Readings’ (from the footnotes) that I made note of:

This is a vintage postcard out of my collection. I like pieces of paper. They are tangible things that people place a great deal of trust in. Maps, charts, postcards, money, stamps…. They are all worth something, they just aren’t always worth a lot.

Please note that several of the links I have placed in this post are slightly ‘off topic.’ That is, there is a link showing for Trafalgar Square but, it is a link to “interglacial deposits” that were found there during the 1950s. There is so much to this world that is just beneath the surface (or, the pavement….).

This postcard was printed for the National Gallery in London – and most likely purchased as a gallery souvenir.

National Gallery, Card No. 1115. Van de Velde: Coast Scene: Calm (871). Printed in Great Britain for the Trustees under the authority of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office by Waterlow & Sons Limited, London. Wt: P1838

There are links to peer-reviewed articles in this post. There is a lot of knowledge in these papers. One of my many habits is to go through the reference lists, end notes and bibliographies to look for more information that I might enjoy reading. This is a link to a small portion of the research that the authors of the articles have included.

Barrier islands are islands that form a barrier between open water and a larger body of land. They form a “first defense” of protection from sea born storms such as hurricanes. They protect the mainland against unceasing tidal action and waves. They are breeding and nesting grounds for numerous vertebrates and invertebrates. They form some of the loveliest places, visually, on this planet. But, are they special? When they are in trouble, are they worth saving?

I may or may not agree with what is in the following articles but, every one of these articles is important. I have arranged them in chronological order. My choices have taken into account the inclusions of maps and photographs (it is an easy way to compare today with yesterday). I hope that you open one or two (or all) of them. These research papers are more than just interesting and they are worth a browse through….

The following are links to grey papers, peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Together, these publications form a body of work that is more than just interesting, it is historical and most are scientific in their approach to finding out answers to questions about things like barrier islands and what they do for this planet.

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Thesis: Quantifying the Impact of Hurricanes, Mid-Latitude Cyclones and other Weather and Climate Extreme Events on the Mississippi-Alabama Barrier Islands Using Remotely Sensed Data. pdf

Just a quick note. The front cover of this report is stamped “Distribution Unlimited.” There are publishing companies who want to charge to let you see this. It is available for free, just a bit tricky to find….

If this article is not showing in the link, try copying and pasting the full title (Land Loss Rates: Mississippi River Deltaic Plain) into a search box on your browser. This is a wonderful publication for photographs!

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Article: The Flank Margin Model for Dissolution Cave Development in Carbonate Platforms. pdf

Authors:

John E. Mylroie, Department of Geology and Geography, Mississippi State University (publications)

James L. Carew, Department of Geology, The College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina